"We didn’t think about it ’cause that’s not what we were about," Johnson said at Baruch College in New York, according to Bloomberg News. "From college, I was trying to figure out how to beat Larry Bird."

HoopsVibe’s Very Quick Call: Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan ‘didn’t have to think about it’ because they had help.

Loads of it.

Frankly, LeBron James doesn’t leave Cleveland if he has Dennis Johnson, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parrish, or Horace Grant/Dennis Rodman and Scottie Pippen, or, like Magic, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, A.C. Green, Byron Scott, and James Worthy.

Who did James have with the Cavaliers? Anderson Varejao? Candace Parker’s brother? Last year there was the old and overweight Shaquille O’Neal, who may soon be out the NBA.

Worst of all for James, this would never change because no star would come to Cleveland.

The creme de la creme of NBA prefer palm trees to Ohio winters. They prefer Malibu and South Beach to parka jackets and winter boots. They prefer major markets to blue-collar cities.

But James allowed Bird, Johnson, and Jordan to omit, alter, and twist reality with his free agent drama. The Decision’ made him a target. And his spectacular failure in the second round of the NBA playoffs against the Boston Celtics didn’t help.

Now everyone is taking shots. Only championships will silence James’ critics and even that may not be enough.